


All the Things That Break You

by iSABinE



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Brotherly Love, Episode: s04e16 On the Head of a Pin, Episode: s11e17 Red Meat, Episode: s14e17 Game Night, Episode: s15e20 Carry On - Barn Scene, Experimental Style, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, POV Sam Winchester, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29297508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iSABinE/pseuds/iSABinE
Summary: It all ends in this barn...
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. One

  
  


I

_It all ends in this barn._

Dean keeps talking about cracks in the ceiling, and you try to stay on the road and not punch anything. 

You think about saying something about mixing a concussion with alcohol, but you are afraid of what he would say—or not say. Lately, every silence has screamed, and every twitch has concealed a land mine. 

“S’not really the breaking, you know; it's knowing— _knowing_ — you can be broken.” His words are slurred, and you aren’t sure if it is the alcohol, the blood loss, or the head injury. He’s slumped against the window, every so often, you see him shift. 

Dean tends to wax poetic when he’s a liter short. Your brother once told you that ‘stars burn lonely, like pain’ when he was bleeding out on your lap in the back seat, Dad going 90 down a backroad. 

“Drives you crazy.” His mouth moves slow over the words.

He nods to himself, head lolling. 

You never should have left him alone, never should have run off to Ruby, not when he was sleeping off a head injury and a nasty eight inch slice to the forearm. He hardly flinched as you stitched. Somehow, that worried you more. 

The vamps had gotten the jump on the both of you, but Dean had, true to form lately, taken the brunt of the beating. Like he needed more of a beating after the Alistar debacle that left him lying in a hospital bed for a week staring at the ceiling like it was a map. 

You had seen his eyes follow the tiny fissures in the plaster and paint a hundred times. He wouldn’t even pretend to watch TV, wouldn’t talk in anything more than monosyllables, wouldn’t eat until you threatened to stop eating too. 

Dean left the hospital with yellowing bruises and a hollowness you don’t think you can ever fill; you left the hospital with a massive headache and a roaring hunger for blood. Blood of demons or blood of angels, either would do at this point. 

“Thinkin bout all the things that can break you.” 

You are dragging him from the car to the room, a journey of a dozen feet that is feeling more and more like a journey to the underworld. 

He’s drunk. More drunk than you have seen him since he was 15 with a fake ID, stumbling home and crashing on the dusty couch. 

You should have been there, should have been with Dean, not out with Ruby. You would have kept him from the bar. You would have tried. 

"All the things that break...," he murmurs, his breath brushing against your neck, smelling sour. “‘m’glass.” 

“How about we get you horizontal?” You squeeze the words out on a breath as you try to keep him standing and simultaneously unlock the door. 

“Sammy, you're not like me." Your brother reaches and slides a clumsy hand across your cheek. "You don't…," he spins his hand in the air, “...cracks." He gestures to himself. 

When you’ve lowered him onto the bed, pulled off his boots and dropped the blanket from your bed over him, you take a minute to look at him. His breathing is deep; you palm his head, no fever. His face is thinner than it was two weeks ago, the shadows under his eyes darker. 

You drop down in a chair and look up at the ceiling, tracing the cracks. And you feel anything but whole. 


	2. Two

**II**

_It’s cold, almost enough to see your breath._

You wake up to the sound of retching. You shift and then hiss, the fresh stitches in your abdomen pulling. 

The bathroom light is on. You can see the crack under the door, a line of pale yellow in the dark. 

You ease yourself up. Dean’s bed is empty. The retching sound echoes followed by a stifled groan.

You drop your feet onto the carpet, and using your arms as much as possible, leverage yourself to a standing position. 

The wound throbs. You stifle a groan of your own and walk the few feet to the bathroom in the dark. 

You rap you knuckle on the door, holding your bullet wound with the other arm. 

“Dean?” 

“I’m —.” More retching sounds. 

You crack open the door and squint in the bright light. When your eyes adjust, you find your brother kneeling over the toilet, one arm holding up his head and the other wrapped around his stomach like he’s the one with the bullet hole. 

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Dean spits and wipes his shaky hand agains his mouth. His skin is pale and sweat slick. “Go back to sleep, Sammy.”

“What’s up?”

“Food poisoning.” He sounds sure, but considering the fact that you haven’t seen him eat anything in the last 24 hours, you don't believe him. 

Dean heaves again, and nothing comes up. 

“Then why is there nothing in the bowl?” 

Dean pauses to glare at him. “Maybe I flushed it.” 

You shake your head. 

He drops back against the wall of the bathroom. 

“What did you do?” You asked him already, back in Idaho, but you believed his answer just about as much as the food poisoning lie. 

Dean doesn’t meet your eyes. Your head begins to throb in time with your gut. 

“Tell me, Dean.” 

He looks at you and it’s like he’s fifteen years younger. His eyes are begging you to leave it alone, and you can never say no to Dean, so you sigh and fill up a glass of water. 


	3. Three

III

_This place smells like dust and blood._

You know it’s bad, but you don’t know how bad. When you go down onto the asphalt, the first thing you think about is Dean. Everything feels unsteady, like the ground is tilting. You need Dean. You always need Dean. 

Then he’s there, blocking out the grey sky. 

He’s smiling, talking: he knows it’s bad. His smile is cracking, and you almost see tiny fault lines behind his eyes. 

Cracking. 

He wants you to count. But he doesn't need numbers now. 

He needs to know that he was always there. Because you are falling or fading or both. 

You need him to know something. To know everything. Seems silly that you didn’t tell him everyday. He was always there. He always put you first. 

You need to say goodbye, and you need him not to break. 

His eyes crinkle.   
Something about a noble heart and cracking. But you are the one dying, right? Well screw that, you’ve never been anything noble, but Dean, he’s always been like a freaking white knight. He’s blocking out the sky and smiling, and everything starts to go numb and dark, but you still see the cracks. 


	4. Four

IV

_It’s full of shadows._

If you could just get Dean outside,—you could fix this; you could fix everything. 

“Stay,” he says. “Stay with me.” 

And he’s dying.

It’s too hard to see through the shadows, but there’s blood on your hand. Sticky, growing cold. 

He’s saying goodbye. His eyes crinkle. 

_Ceiling cracks._

You want to scream, scream curses, prayers, or NO NO NO. But all you feel is weight settling, grounding your feet, stopping your tongue. You don't say goodbye. You and Dean never say goodbye. He's not allowed.

_Dean’s above you, trying to keep it together, talking to you, trying to get you to count, fingers digging hard into your arm like he can make you stay. All you can think about is that you’re going to leave him, and he’s going to break, a simple fact, like the sky is blue. He can’t let go. He never lets go. You try to say goodbye but he—he just can’t, your brother is cracking in front of you._

You are the one holding him here, and he’s trying to say goodbye. And you want to shout at him. It isn’t fair. He can’t leave you. He can’t go first. Not again. 

Failing heart, flatlining, gunshot in an empty parking lot, hellhounds, an explosion of black goo, a hole through his chest— 

You say no— _everytime_ —screaming it until your lungs are raw, until your mind dances to the rhythm of it, until he hears and comes back. He always comes back; he always stays when you beg, when you curse—when you cry. 

“Stay,” he said, but he’s the one leaving. 

He can’t leave you. 

He can’t go. 

He can’t—

NO. NO. NO.

He says you’re the strong one, but you have never been weaker. Your knees shake. Your hands shake. Your words shake. 

He’s asking for something you can’t give. 

_You see his face over you, smiling, cause he knows it’s bad, and he doesn't want you to know how bad. But you feel numbness spreading up your fingers and toes, cold ghosting across your skin, and that strange floating disconnect that comes when your mind is about to shut down._

_And his eyes are begging._

His eyes are begging. 

_He was always there for you, the only one who was. You try to tell him that, like apologizing._

Stay. Stay. Stay. 

He said. You say. You always say. 

Don’t leave me here in the hotel alone. 

Don’t leave me behind in the dark. 

Don’t leave me alone, Dean. 

Don’t leave me. 

“I need you to tell me it’s okay.” 

_His eyes are begging._ His eyes are begging. 

It’s not okay; nothing is ever going to be okay.

And you’re in this stupid barn, and it smells like dust. And he’s right there, you're holding him, he's warm and alive. His eyes are begging. _And you see him above you, blocking out the grey sky, blurring at the edges. He needs you._

He needs you to promise. 

_You can never say no to Dean._

And your tongue is like lead; you try not to choke.

“It’s okay.” 

_You see him above you, and he’s smiling because he knows it’s bad, but he doesn't want you to know how bad._


End file.
